So EMC World 2011 has come and gone. Now is the time that we can look back and remember. For those of you who were unable to make it live (or watch the webcast), a video of our #nerdherd has been posted on the EMC Community Network website. I want to thank Alan Zenreich for filming and posting the video. If you are one of the many people who prefer a more static image, EMC’s own David Elmes did most of the photography (including the photos of our meetup you see below). To see the rest of his work and other’s, check out the EMC World 2011 flickr stream. Once again, thanks to everyone that made this happen and enjoy the pictures and video.

First off, my apologies for not having this final EMC World post out sooner. Traveling and lack of sleep has pretty much kept me away from writing until now. Day 3 was the last full day of EMC World and it was just as packed as before.

Today was EMC Proven day at EMC World. Attendees that had received a proven certification were given an orange shirt and asked to wear it to show their support. After hearing news that Matt took 3 different exams yesterday, I decided it would be a good idea to take one as well. Being that it has been over a year since I started in NAS support, I should have retained enough knowledge to pass the NAS Specialist exam. Apparently I wasn’t the only one to have this idea because the line to register was out the door and it took over a half hour to get signed up for my exam. This also meant that all the timeslots were taken and it was standby only. The people at the proven center were well aware of this surge to pass exams, so a second testing room was opened up and my wait time was only a few minutes. This whole experience was well worth it as I passed my NAS Specialist exam.

We also had our #nerdherd today and it was a great experience. While several people joined us on camera, even more joined to watch, or participated via twitter and the live chat. All sorts of topics were discussed like the keynotes at EMC World, the vLabs, the VNXe, local #nerdherd meetings, and many other things. One of the comments that were brought up was the notion that “EMC eats its own dog food”. Taken out of context, this sounds like it has a negative connotation, but it really doesn’t. What was meant by this statement was that we use internally the same thing we are trying to sell to customers. We have a very large VDI deployment that works very well.

The day closed out with the final keynote, Chad’s World Live. Hopefully most of you already know the Chad’s World videos, but if you don’t, you should check them out. The venue was full of beer and laughs and it was a great time. The tech demos on stage were great. They powered on 100 Wyse thin clients only to reveal that it was powered by the new Iomega PX6 (I want one of these). My only concern with this was the time. The performance was right after the sessions and show floor ended, so people were being pumped full of beer on an empty stomach. This did cause a lot of noise to be coming from the back of the room.

Las Vegas is a great place for a conference. Everything is within walking distance and there are plenty of things to do when you’re not on the show floor. You can take in an after party, a club, some great food, or a performance. When you are ready to unwind, the view can be incredible. I had an incredible time at EMC World. Len Devanna made a great place for a blogger like myself to get work done while at the show. Thanks to everyone who made this an event to remember and I can’t wait to go to EMC World next year.

So another day has wrapped up here at EMC World. Once again there are more keynotes, breakout sessions, and vendor booths to explore. The vLabs were in full swing and just about all of the kinks had been worked out. These are a great way to experience the products if you can’t make it to the break out sessions. If you attended multiple vLab sessions, you were able to win a special bobble head Chad and possibly get the real Chad to sign it.

The show floor was packed even more than yesterday. Vendors had all sorts of innovative products. One of my favorite products from the show floor was the battle ready VNXe. We were told that this could withstand a bullet, but they wouldn’t let me live test it, so I’ll just have to take their word for it.

The bloggers lounge and Social City was also packed with great people. I had a nice talk with Chuck Hollis while he was working on a few blog posts. Chad dropped by the social city meet-up area to do a live webcast before rushing off to another customer meeting. If you haven’t seen all that’s going on at social city, you really need to check it out (and possibly win a pass to next year’s show). Don’t forget, tomorrow we are having the #nerdherd, so I expect you all to stop by social city on your way to lunch.

In my previous post, I talked about the pre-conference festivities. Today was the official kick off of the show. After a quick breakfast, I started my day in the Blogger’s Lounge at Social City. If you have not seen this place, you should check it out. EMC’s Social Media team has provided an amazing space with plenty of couches, chairs, power strips, WIFI, and a Cappuccino Machine. They have made this a great place to sit down, have a great conversation, and do some blogging.

The morning kicked off with two great keynotes by Joe Tucci and Pat Gelsinger. I could go on and on about what was talked about, but everyone is covering that information, so you’ve probably already read about it. If not, feel free to check out the press releases on the EMC Website.

One of the first areas of EMC World that I checked out was the vSpecialist vLab. This is a great way to give customers a hands-on approach to trying out several of EMC’s different products. The lab setup has a large number of dual screen terminals powered by Wyse thin clients. This allowed the actual desktops and lab terminals to be thousands of miles away in Research Triangle Park. Leveraging this virtual setup, the lab can actually be deployed anywhere which will cut down on cost and setup time for future conventions.

Lunch was very good and efficient. The convention staff has really brought order to the chaos that is feeding 10,000+ people. I really have to give it up to them as there were no problems getting food and finding a place to eat.

After Lunch, since the Solutions Pavilion was not open yet, it was time for some breakout sessions. EMC World has a wide variety of presentations and hands on labs available to customers and it ranges from introductory level to advanced topics. Along with all the breakout sessions, the EMC Education Services staff are here and offering exams for half price. This is a great way to become proven and I plan on taking a specialist exam while I’m here.

Towards the end of the day, the solution pavilion opened and I was able to check out all that our partners had to offer. There is a lot going on in the area with demos of all the great products. Almost everyone is giving away an iPad 2 or a shirt. I didn’t spend too much time there at first, but I will be making another round before I leave Las Vegas.

So I have been in Vegas for a little more than 24 hours. I have done a lot of walking around, I have won some money, I have met up with many of my twitter friends, and I also got my first taste of EMC World. For those of you who may not know, this is my first tech conference, and I plan to get as much as possible out of it.

Today I learned my first valuable conference lesson: Wear comfortable walking shoes. Today I chose to wear a flat bottomed skater-style shoe. This was a bad choice and by lunch time I was already in the Walgreens buying a set of Dr. Scholl’s inserts. I may try a different kind of shoe tomorrow, but if my feet are hurting this much already, who knows what tomorrow will be like.

It was great to meet up with everyone. After having an amazing breakfast, we met up with Thomas Jones. He joined us on a trip around Las Vegas as we went all the way to Mandalay Bay to pick up our interop badges. After finding out the roller coaster at New York New York was closed, we made our way back to the Venetian because it was time to register for EMC World. In a matter of minutes, I bumped into Chad Sakac, Len Devanna, David Hurst, and Jeramiah Dooley.

It was then finaly time to start the conference off right. For EMC employees, we were treated to a short presentation from Jeremy Burton on the company message and what to expect from EMC World. This was also where I mett Dave Henry and Mark Twomey for the first time. Then it was time for the pool. I didn’t realize just how big the pool area was, but I got lost for a while. Eventually, I met up with everyone, including Kelly Lavin, Denny Cherry, Julia Mak, Cody Bunch, and Edward Haletky. This great group of people will make this conference even better. I’m not even 1 day in and I’m loving every minute of it. See you on the show floor!

So it’s official, Matt Brender, Luigi Danakos, and I will be hosting a #nerdherd as part of Social City on Wednesday, May 11th from 11:45 AM to 12:30 PM. We invite you to gather with your fellow technological enthusiasts and join us in an information discussion around Unified Storage, Social Media Crowdsourcing, and EMC Certifications. Use this time to meet other individuals who are striving in the world of Big Data. I’ll see all of you there!

UPDATE: So what if you can’t be there? We’ve got you covered. Social City will be live streaming the meetup (and many others) on the ECN website along with a live Q&A so you can share in the discussion.

If you couldn’t tell, I do almost everything technology related with Matt Brender and Luigi Danakos. People have dubbed us the 3 Musketeers and I think the name suites us well. I waited until now to talk about this because I am officially confirmed with flights, hotel, and passes to EMC World and Interop.

Our plan to get to EMC World started at the end of last year’s show. Both Matt and Luigi won a chance to be a part of the event. I however, being brand new to EMC, was not able to attend the show in Boston, but I did network at the after parties. Nevertheless, I still wanted to be a part of the fun and excitement next year. New York, Paris, or Milan, we had decided we were going to make our way to the show.

“You’re not pre sales or a customer, how did you get there?”. I’ve been asked this question more than once, and while the details are a bit classified, I can say this. The idea of sending us to EMC world has been talked around for several months now. Once we purchased our flights and hotel rooms, we ramped up our campaign. Well, we caught the attention of the right people who also agreed that we should be there and made it happen.

“So what are you going to do there?”. In short, everything I can. I plan to make multiple rounds of the show floor, checking out everything our departments and partners have to offer. I will also be a part of the bloggers lounge, observe some breakout sessions, and make my way to a few keynotes as well. Last year Luigi had a twitter shirt signing going on and if he’s going to do it again this year, I may join him. So look around for me on the show floor and make sure you say hello.

If you were a fan of trivia games in the late 1990s then you have definitely heard of “You Don’t Know Jack” and are well aware of the addiction people had to it. Unfortunatly, the questions are now horribly out of date and a new version hasn’t been available for the last 10+ years. Well I’m proud to announce it’s back and better than ever!

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the series, the ”you don’t know jack” games pitted 1 to 4 players in a quiz show style challenge that combined knowledge with comedic pop culture references. If you got the questions wrong, the game would publicly shame you in front of the other players.

This year, THQ Games has brought the series back to life with a whole new version of the game featuring all new questions with a modern twist. Players are treated to two rounds of 5 questions followed by the “Jack Attack” where players can go from last to first (and vice versa). Along with that, players can “screw” another play and force them to answer a question in 5 seconds or less.

The game is narrated by your host Cookie Masterson who is full of colorful commentary for every question. With more than 70 episodes contained on disc (and even more in the various DLCs), all the comments are fresh and rarely repeated. While it’s fun to get the questions right, it’s even more fun when you get them wrong (especially when you get the “wrong answer of the game” and are rewarded with an extra bonus prize). While playing together with friends is a great way to share in the laughter and fun, this game can also be played online as well.

If you can’t tell already, I absolutely love this game and have even hosted evenings dedicated to people playing this for hours. And what makes it even better is the price. Instead of the standard $50 – $60 that games cost these days, You Don’t Know Jack can be had for an MSRP of $30 (and with the right deals it’s more like $15 – $20). I urge you to pick up this game and join in the excitement. If you have this game already and an xbox live account, let me know and we’ll start a match.

Warning: If you were looking for a post that has anything to do with the TV show “Chuck”, you are pleasantly mistaken. Regardless of this warning, please keep reading.

So if you follow me or many of my friends on twitter, you may see the hashtag #nerdherd being used. I have been asked by some people just what is this “#nerdherd” that we tweet of? In short, it is a group of technology enthusiasts that come together (usually arranged via twitter) to talk shop and consume a food or beverage. To give you a more in depth answer, I need to take you back about 6 – 10 months.

The original #nerdherd started with David Graham, Matt Brender, Luigi Danakos, and I. We 4 former and current EMC employees would meet once or twice a week at the local Dunkin Donuts near the company headquarters since it was close to where we worked and lived. It didn’t matter that we came from support, install base, or engineering, we always had something to talk about. Our discussions were fueled by our passion for technology and our willingness to learn, and we would never turn down an opportunity to include another person in the group.

Over the months I have been blessed to be a part of many great tweetups and nerdherds. They may not include all of the original people, but it’s still a great time. Just tonight I had a nerdherd with Matt Brender, Scott Lowe, and Ben Dunning, and as luck would have it, I will be attending one of the biggest nerdherds of them all in Las Vegas next month (more on this to come). So I encourage you to go out there and form your own groups and be passionate about technology. If your ever in the area, drop me a line on twitter and we’ll get something together.

Welcome to Thulin’ Around. This is my first self-registered domain and my first major blog. Many of you may already know me from various message boards and twitter. You can come to expect a variety of different subjects on this blog including technology, automotive, photography, movies, current events, travel, or whatever is on my mind.

So why “Thulin’ Around”? To answer that, I have to give credit to Koset Surakomol. He suggested it as part of an impromptu twitter contest. As you know, my name is Sean Thulin (pronounced “too lean”) and when you say the domain name fast, it sounds like “tooling”. After tossing the name around in my head for about an hour, I thought it would be a perfect fit for a blog that covers so many different and unrelated subjects. Koset is a Advisory Technical Consultant with Greenplum (a subsidiary of EMC2) and collector of watches and fast cars. If you’re not already following him on twitter, you should be.

I also want to give thanks to Luigi Danakos. He helped me register this domain and guided me through the WordPress setup. As this is my first blog an my first post, do expect things to change around here before I get it into final form. With that being said, I hope you enjoy my posts over the next months and years.

Disclaimer

The opinions expressed here are my personal opinions. Content published here may not have been read or approved in advance by my employer and does not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of my employer. This is my blog, it is not a corporate blog.